Forward Racing Team’s Lorenzo Baldassarri displayed a fantastic remount under the pouring rain in Japan, while Luca Marini was unlucky to finish the 15th round of the 2017 Moto2 World Championship season prematurely.

Due to oil around the 4.801-kilometer track, the procedures on Sunday were delayed, which resulted in a shortened warm up session, plus a new race start at 13.00 local time with a distance of just 15 laps instead of 23.

Anyway, the changed schedule didn’t hamper Baldassarri to show a good performance in the morning session as he placed himself well in ninth. For the race, he snatched an incredible launch off the line from 30th on the grid and was able to pass ten competitors in just the course of the first lap to find himself quickly in 20th spot, before continuing his impressive comeback. In the second lap, the Italian was already in 14th and soon started to fight with the championship leaders. He left even more riders behind and finally saw the chequered flag in a fabulous tenth position.

Marini on the other hand, was able to quickly restore his feeling from FP3 on wet tarmac. By the end of the 15 minutes warm up he grabbed eight place, finishing less than one second behind the top. When the lights went out in the pouring rain, the 20-year old kicked off his hunt for glory in a positive fashion, starting from the seventh row, although he had the difficult task to find his way through the spray of the riders in front of him. After he had already recovered several positions, he unfortunately slipped away in turn 14 during the second lap.

In just three days’ time the Forward Racing Team already arrives in Phillip Island, where the Australian GP, the second of the flyaway triple kicks off on Friday.

Lorenzo Baldassarri –10th (+14.310)“Honestly, I’m truly happy about today’s race. For the first laps, I wanted to stay cautious to not commit any mistakes, as there was really plenty of water everywhere and the vision was very low. But despite of that, I was already quite fast and lap by lap I gained more confidence to find my rhythm and make my way up to tenth. At that point, the rear grip dropped and I couldn’t attack again, because my feeling wasn’t just quite the same anymore. In any case, I’m pleased, we needed this result, not just for me, but especially for my guys, who worked really hard this weekend. Now, I hope we can continue this line and move even forward in the upcoming races to fight for the top positions again.”

Luca Marini – DNF“I have to admit, that I’m really sorry and disappointed about the end of this weekend. This fall came unexpected and apparently, luck was just not on our side. I sincerely don’t know what happened, I was doing well, the feeling on the wet was good and I didn’t feel like I had made any mistakes. I’m relieved, that the next race is just around the corner, as I quickly want to forget about this result and proof, what I’m capable of. Our main goal for Australia will be to stay in the saddle, trying to get rid of this misfortune, that seems to have followed us even to Japan.”

Giovanni Cuzari – Team Owner“We leave the land of rising sun with a bittersweet taste in our mouths. After Lorenzo clearly has been far behind expectations yesterday, he truly improved on his qualifying result with this race. Overall, he made up 20 positions, which is incredible, especially in these very tricky conditions. Therefore, we’re satisfied to take not only some points away, but particularly that we’re back inside the top 10, which is an encouraging sign for the upcoming rounds in Australia and Malaysia. On the other hand, Luca wasn’t able to turn around his Japanese experience today. He took the gamble in qualifying to go out with slick tyres straight away, a decision, which had not payed off, so he had to commence his challenge from the middle of the field. Maybe he was a bit too keen to do well in order to recover, which might have caused the mistake. However, we have to look ahead to the next rounds, as there’s luckily not much time for regret and be well prepared in order to perform better in Australia. I want to thank everybody for the hard work this weekend and our sponsors for their support. ”

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.